Hello everybody, I just wanted to ask about something which came up in a thread on the Spain forum (I live in Madrid): we were talking about property rental prices here in Spain and there in Germany - renting a 12m2 room in a central-ish shared flat here is about 350 euros per month, and a one bedroom flat (30m2) is running at about 650/700-ish.

How does that compare to Germany, and in particular, Berlin? (the hourly rate here for teaching is about 12-15 euros an hour, and it's possible to work about 20 hours a week here to fit in with Spanish working hours).

Moore, most Germans (about 60%) live in rented accommodation, and the market is very big.

Rents in most places are nowhere near as fearsome as the Madrid prices you quote, and even in Berlin you might pay less than half of what you pay at present.

You can check online yourself, but you'll need to understand German to do it: find a search engine and enter 'mietspiegel' + cityname, then follow the links. The Germans have good online documentation for this.

I've got a link for you here http://finanzen.focus.msn.de/D/DJ/DJR/DJRA/djra.htm which gives you a list of the cities starting with 'B'. Click on 'Berlin/Ost' or 'Berlin/West', depending on where you want to live, and they will give you the average price range.

The prices quoted are 'Nettokaltmiete pro m2' or 'Net basic rent per m2'. When they say 'basic rent', they mean 'excluding ancillary costs' such as heating, electricity, water, refuse collection and services etc.

These ancillary costs are expensive, and together can easily be 35% on top of your basic rent, if not more - the stats that I have show electricity in Germany is around 50% more expensive than in Spain, to give you an idea.

I don't know about hourly rates for teachers, or how much work you could expect to find - it will depend on where you are and who you work for. But maybe others can give you some info.

Don't know exactly the rates in Berlin but I guess in central Berlin they are expensive, would say same, same like in madrid but different.
If you live a little bit out side of the Cityies it's cheaper. I live in a City close to frankfurt 20km from there about 12 miles and the average rent is around 400-650 for 50 qm, 2 room flat. 1 room even cheaper. Frankfurt city about 600-1000 depends where and what kind. But I think living in Spain is in general cheaper.
ask me I live here hopefully not that much longer, 25 years are enough....

The centre of just about any city would be expensive, but affordable accommodation can be found in Berlin. It just depends on how choosy one is about the neighborhood (along with the usual considerations). The eastern part ought to be cheaper than in the west.

Thanks for all your replies: I think a visit to Berlin is called for to check out all the other costs of living there. The price of living here in Madrid has shot up so much that I'm looking around at other European cities.

At the risk of going off-topic on my own thread, what sort of price are flats to buy over there? I've been looking at one bed places here and they're about 180,000 euros for 30m2 for something pretty central, which is an awful lot of money when you balance it against the much lower salaries here.

Thanks for all your replies: I think a visit to Berlin is called for to check out all the other costs of living there. The price of living here in Madrid has shot up so much that I'm looking around at other European cities.

At the risk of going off-topic on my own thread, what sort of price are flats to buy over there? I've been looking at one bed places here and they're about 180,000 euros for 30m2 for something pretty central, which is an awful lot of money when you balance it against the much lower salaries here.

Moore, you can get all of that information online, and much quicker and cheaper than actually going to Berlin.

Excellent info Poro, thanks for taking the trouble to post it up here.
A visit is definitely in order, flats are really cheap up there (although it'd be hard to tear myself away from the outdoor pools we have down here)

berlin is also in a good position for traveling to Prague. Another thing to note is that a two-way ticket to Krakow which takes about 9 hours each way was only 60 Euros in 2002 when I made the trip. It cost more than that to travel from Berlin to Hamburg if you don't have a "Wochenendekarte" or some other special card.

Anyways I am off to Korea. I don't know when I will make it back to Europe. I am thinking about applying for the MA in education program in Poland that has been advertised on Dave's.

When looking for flats to rent anywhere in Germany it's helpful to use a search engine and type in "Mitwohnzentrale". The Home Company is there but there are also many other flat rental / flat share opportunities, including bunking in uni dorms during the summers.

Some Mitwohnzentrale target students so they're likely to have the least expensive options. Best to look at as many flat advert options as possible if you're on a tight budget.